More on the Middle East
The NYT reports today of further developments in the Middle East.
Jordan’s Royal Palace says the king has sacked his government in the wake of street protests and has asked an ex-army general to form a new Cabinet.
King Abdullah’s move comes after thousands of Jordanians took to the streets — inspired by the regime ouster in Tunisia and the turmoil in Egypt — and called for the resignation of Prime Minister Samir Rifai who is blamed for a rise in fuel and food prices and slowed political reforms.
The Royal Palace says Rifai’s Cabinet resigned on Tuesday.
Barkley Rosser offers a take off point for the international aspects of the Egyptian turmoil, and a beginning look at the history of the politics/economics of the nation.
Yesterday, Juan Cole posted on Class Conflict in Egypt. As usual, very insightful on the poltical economic foundations of this uprising. He argues that the original base of support for the Nasserist regime that took over in a coup in 1952 was rural land reform, with the rural middle class that got land still the base of the regime. However, over time with urbanization and slow growth and the rise of corruption since Mubarak took over, that base has eroded.
Nasser also gained credibility for throwing out the British and standing up to other outsiders (with the US and Soviets ironically siding with him in the 1956 Suez Crisis against the UK, France, and Israel).Real wages doubled between 1960 and 1970, when Nasser died, but stagnated after that until 2000, with nearly zero real per capita income growth and a worsening income distribution. Neo-liberal policies, including relaxation of food price controls in the 1990s, did not produce much, although growth did increase after 2000, running at a 5-6% rate. But it has not been enough to provide jobs for the many urban youth, particularly the better educated ones.
Also, since 1980 the regime has been seen as supported by outsiders, particularly the US, Israel, Britain, and France, in contrast to the Nasser period. As economic problems surged with the food price spikes in 2008 and the subsequent Great Recession in the world economy, this made for a weak foundation of support for the regime. We should expect any successor to take a more independent line, especially the moderate El-Baradei who was so badly treated by the US previously.
I must note, however, that while inequality has increased, it is not all that bad compared to many other countries, with Egypt’s current Gini coefficient of 34.0 putting it in 90th place in terms of inequality in the world.
Finally, I note that the chances for Mohamed El-Baradei succeeding Mubarak (eventually anyway) have increased with him receiving the support of the Ikhwan, the Muslim Brotherhood. However, there are other more radical Islamist groups in Egypt calling for an Islamist state with Shari’a imposed as law, although they appear to be a minority on that side, even though they are more moderate than the expelled Egyptian Islamic Jihad, whose leaders include the #2 and #3 figures in al-Qaeda.
“Real wages doubled between 1960 and 1970, when Nasser died, but stagnated after that until 2000, with nearly zero real per capita income growth and a worsening income distribution. Neo-liberal policies, including relaxation of food price controls in the 1990s, did not produce much, although growth did increase after 2000, running at a 5-6% rate. But it has not been enough to provide jobs for the many urban youth, particularly the better educated ones.”
Is that a description of the Egyptian economy? It sounds very familiar, as though I’ve read something similar recently about stagnating wages and disparate income distribution on this side of the Atlantic. I don’t think that it was Canada I was reading about.
I must note, however, that while inequality has increased, it is not all that bad compared to many other countries . . .
Yes, if the other countries in your comparison are African countries like, let’s say, The Republic of Zimbabwe.
. . . with Egypt’s current Gini coefficient of 34.0 putting it in 90th place in terms of inequality in the world.
Egypt’s GINI coefficient is misleading. Excluding the very rich Egyptians, the rest—comprising about 95% of the pop.—are all equally poor, as in equally dirt poor.
PS: Don’t care for the likes of Juan Cole. Last year in his blog, when he was waxing poetic about Turkey, I reminded him of Turkey’s continued, illlegal, 35-year occupation of northern Cyprus. My entry was quickly deleted.
I do accept as true with all the ideas you’ve presented to your post. They’re really convincing and will certainly work. Nonetheless, the posts are too brief for starters. May just you please extend them a little from subsequent time? Thank you for the post.